How Archvale grew 3x without expanding HR team by automating onboarding

Website

archvale.co.uk

Employees

250+

Industry

Healthcare

Locations

United Kingdom

Archvale is reshaping primary care in the UK by supporting NHS GP practices to improve their operations for the benefits of patients and staff. Guided by their vision “A future where all patients have access to comprehensive, coordinated and continuous care”, Archvale invests in digital-first solutions, streamlined workflows, and patient-focused services to grow and modernise practices.

Founded by Dr. Zubair Ahmed, an MBA graduate and GP behind the successful healthcare venture Medicspot, Archvale’s approach combines operational efficiency with cutting-edge digital tools. They focus on transforming practices into modern, highly accessible services and expanding their patient base through smart marketing, SEO-optimised sites, and seamless online registration.

The impact

3x headcount growth without expanding the HR team

3x growth, 0 extra HR hires: Grew from 97 to 230 employees in one year, with the same 3-person HR team
Onboarding time cut by 90%: Employee onboarding used to be 1–2 weeks per hire. They now onboard ~6 new starters per month in 3 hours
Passed two CQC audits with ease: Zelt’s centralised HR data helped Archvale meet Care Quality Commission standards
Source of truth for employee data: Salary reviews and reporting now take minutes instead of days

Zelt review by Kat

The Challenge

Scaling fast with fragmented systems and manual onboarding

When Archvale began scaling across multiple NHS practices, their HR setup was under strain:

No real employee management system
Using Practice Index, a healthcare-specific tool with no real HRIS functionality

Manual onboarding
Contracts, right-to-work checks, and reference requests were managed in a separate tool, then manually uploaded one by one

Disconnected data
Salary information, employment changes, and starter/leaver details were tracked in separate spreadsheets

System silos
No single source of truth for employee data across 8+ entities, making reporting slow and error-prone

As their headcount started growing, the manual admin load became unsustainable.

Kat Ulanczyk

Head of HR

"It was a very difficult time, I was just trying to survive. Keeping track of any employment changes was a very time-consuming exercise"

The Decision

Why Zelt

Archvale needed a platform that could handle rapid growth without adding unnecessary complexity or cost. Zelt offered:

End-to-end onboarding automation
Better value than other modern tools
Integrations with tools like ScreenLoop (ATS) and Zinc (background checks)
Scalability to support future expansion

The Solution

End-to-end onboarding automation, built for scale

Employee onboarding in Zelt

Offer & contract management
Candidates sign offers in ScreenLoop and flow directly into Zelt for automatic contract generation and secure document storage.

Compliance & right-to-work checks
Zinc integration automates document collection, DBS checks, and reference requests.

Centralised onboarding
New hires upload qualifications, immunisations, and occupational health questionnaires directly to Zelt – in one secure, version-controlled profile.

CQC audit-ready records
No more sensitive data in inboxes or shared folders – everything is tied to the employee record, reducing risk and ensuring compliance.

Onboarding tasks now fully automated in Zelt:

Personal and employment data collection
Contract signing
Onboarding checklists
Document uploads (Passport/ID, GMC Certificate, Qualifications, Immunisation Report, MDU Cover, Last Appraisal, Equipment Acknowledgement Form)
Payroll onboarding
ID checks

Kat Ulanczyk

Head of HR

"When we were going through a salary review, I had to keep a separate manual spreadsheet with all the salaries. When you do something manually, that’s when mistakes happen. Zelt gave us a real HR information system"

The Solution

Centralised HR data and documents across 8+ entities

Report insights in Zelt

Single, unified 360° employee view
All contracts, salary changes, and employment data now live in one platform

Instant, reliable reporting
HR can pull accurate reports in minutes, without spending hours doing so manually

Improved audit readiness
Archvale passed two recent CQC audits with ease thanks to Zelt’s centralised data

Secure access control
Entity-based permissions ensure employees only see relevant information

Kat Ulanczyk

Head of HR

"It feels like running nine separate businesses… and now, having everything in one place, I don’t even have to think about it. Just tick, tick, tick… and here’s my report."

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